A Night Out
by Le Queen of Morons
Summary: Shikamaru does not get drunk. Not at all. So, just what happens when he goes out with Choji and Ino after a bad day, then?


Nara Shikamaru was _not_ drunk.

Nara Shikamaru did not _get_ drunk.

The hangover the next day was way too much of a drag to deal with. Why bother with a night of heavy drinking if you only had a day of misery to look forward to come morning? Waking up was hard enough to begin with; waking up with an upset stomach, a nasty case of the spins and a raging headache was impossible. The night before just wasn't worth the morning after. Perfectly logical reasoning.

That's why he absolutely refused to get inebriated enough for a hangover.

Though, if you were out with friends to celebrate the ending of an absolutely miserable day, one or two drinks weren't a bad idea. Or was that three or four? Maybe an outside chance of five. Odd, he wasn't entirely sure. Did he lose count? No, not possible. Sure, his tongue was numb, but that was to be expected from the horrid taste of low-line sake he'd been sharing with his two best friends. He imagined that his taste-buds would only take so much abuse before they gave up and went home without him.

However, the distinctly _not drunk_ Nara stared fuzzily at his empty sake cup and wondered where its contents went. Who took his last drink, and how had they done it?

He'd just been watching Ino flirting with some idiot at the bar while she was fetching another bottle, when he brought the cup to his lips only to find it empty. The mystery should be easy enough to solve through a simple process of elimination. Ino couldn't have done it – she was getting the bottle she currently carried back to their table when the liquid had pulled its disappearing act. It certainly wasn't him – he would have remembered drinking it. There was only one other possible culprit.

Without a doubt, it had to be Coji.

The gentle natured youth had a tendency to turn vicious when it came down to the last bit of food on a plate or chips in a bag. Who's to say the last few drops of alcohol would be any different? They were both chunin and Shikamaru had been distracted. He was in a safe environment; there was no reason not to drop his guard at least a little. It would have been child's play to sneak the stuff away from him. That explained it perfectly. Choji must have stolen the drink out of his hand while he wasn't looking. What a pain.

Slowly, Shikamaru turned to stare down his best friend through menacingly narrowed eyes. He had no way of knowing that he looked more like he was trying to read text a little too small to focus on than wordlessly intimidating the Akamichi into giving up the elongated, no doubt dastardly curly, straw he had no doubt used to sip the alcohol with.

"Uh," the rotund ninja glanced over at the squinting Nara and grinned uncertainly, "Shikamaru?"

"You," he blinked at a sudden whiff of something subtly floral. Where was that coming from? Slowly, he leaned in closer to his friend, and sniffed experimentally at forehead level. "'Zat you?"

Choji grinned in patient amusement, "Who else would it be? Have you been hanging out a little too much with Akamaru?"

"Pft." Shikamaru shook his head. What kind of questions were those? "Nah. I meant th' smell."

"I smell?" The Akamichi arched his brows.

Without preamble, the Nara sank his hands into his friend's spiked brown hair and pulled him close enough to press his face into it. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. "'Ey…you smell good. Y…y' use yer mom's shampoo 'er somethin? 'Cause, yeah. Y' smell good." he muttered, and then jolted back at the sudden flash of light which filtered red through his lowered eyelids. "Wha'?" Startled, he glanced around as he settled back in his seat, heedless of the chuckling Choji. "Wha' was that?"

The Yamanaka girl stashed the camera while Shikamaru was looking in the other direction and innocently leaned over to refill his cup. "What was what?"

"Th' flash of light." His friends must have had too much to drink. They seemed unable to notice the most obvious things. Maybe he should end the night and make sure they got home safely. Or something like that. Nah, they seemed pretty steady still, if not a little blurry. Why they were cloning themselves was beyond him. There was no way he could have been seeing double. He sighed and slumped back against the plush back of the booth.

"Oh," Ino smiled and propped her elbows on the table, lacing gracefully tapered fingers together. Encouragingly, she nodded in the direction of his fresh cup of sake. "That was nothing you need to worry about. Drink up, Shikamaru. You need to unwind, remember?"

He lifted a brow. Rather, he tried to lift a brow. The other kept following the first, and that simply wouldn't do. After a few moments of face-making struggle, he settled for fixing a dry look in Ino's general direction. The lighting must have been lowered a little too much because he seemed to have a hard time actually focusing on Ino – or anything else, for that matter.

Nonetheless, he sluggishly obeyed. The warm liquid flowed smoothly over his tongue and down his throat. The stuff really was a lot better when he couldn't actually taste it.

Maybe if he closed his eyes for just a few minutes, they'd be able to focus a little better when next he opened them. Come to think of it, he was pretty tired. They wouldn't mind if he caught a little nap, would they? It wasn't as if they were in the middle of a mission or training.

Without quite realizing it, he slowly listed to his right until he hit something just firm enough to give a little when his head hit it and just warm enough to soothe him to sleep.

The slumbering Nara didn't register the soft snore leaving his throat, Choji's quiet chuckle nor the final flash of light from a giggling Ino's camera as she immortalized the scene of the ordinarily reserved shadow-nin catching a few winks against his buddy's shoulder.

No, Nara Shikamaru was most definitely not drunk. Nara Shikamaru was absolutely _wasted_.

* * *

**This was so fun to write. XD Shikamaru is an absolutely adorable drunk, isn't he?**

**This was inspired by Okami-Rayne's picture 'Best Friends+Blackmail' on DA. She's a great artist and awesome writer. She goes by the same name here on as well. :)  
**


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